India evokes many pictures but a picture on the screen which is hard to dispel is that of a seething mass of humanity living in abject poverty. This can also be characterized as a state of deprivation, dependence and degradation to live in conditions below physically and socio-culturally acceptable norms or standards set by a society or nation associated with a minimum level of living for its population. The definition apity suits the rural Indian segments where a total of 33.4 per cent of the population lives below poverty line.
Rural India constitutes a total of 0.63 million villages with a population of 534.4 million. The basic statistics of rural areas show that there is a skewed distribution of land holdings and population in villages. Large number of workers, as landless labourers, survive on poor wages as even bonded labour. They are deprived of the basic amenities expected by the village folks.
In addition to the economic constraints, there are religious attitudes, castes stereotype personality patterns, superstitions and taboos which perpetuate the ingrained ineqalitarian social structure. All these factors hinder the pace of development in rural Indian and plunge the society into poverty. Agriculture, the main profession, feeds more than 70 percent of the population. Ruralites remain dependent on agriculture for their survival, owing to lack of any other side or main channel for income. The poor rate of agriculture growth keeps the masses in low income in the zone.
The major strain on agriculture growth is due to land holding. The size is not sufficient enough to permit use of advanced technology. Scarcity of rainfall or excess rainfall presents another big problem: There is still need to carry the irrigation water to fields. According to government sources, there has been a lag in utilization of created potentials. Even at the end of 1991-92 utilisation was 73.1 m. hectare against a created potential of 81.2 m. ha. The delayed rainfall and its effect can be labeled to any of the reasons but the ultimate effect is poverty in the field and efforts of people to migrate to urban colonies. The recent authorization to village Panchayats has boosted the efforts to evolve new formulae in the rural area. This has fastened the utilization of funds.
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Illiteracy is another problem in rural areas. This shatters the efforts of the ruralites in the villages. They need really good and dedicated teachers. The village folk is still exploited by the middlemen. They bind or tie up the needs of the people and keep the farmer under continuous strain.
There have been efforts to transform the villages through schemes like community development programme 1952 IRDP, TRYSEM, Operation Blackboard (1987-88), National Literacy Mission 1988. Integrated Child Development Programmes 1975, Balwade Nutrition Programme, Indira Awas Yojna etc. Besides all this, Panchayti Raj Yojna have been established at village, block and district levels for democratic decentralization and devolution of powers to people.
The co-operative movement and aimed at the development of the weaker sections has also not succeeded much. Pandit Nehru said, “The state should promote and assist the co-operative movement instead of trying to control it. The movement must be popularized as peoples movement and government assistance should be such as help it in its growth and not stifle it by interference and controls.
The rural segment still looks for proper drinking water and in most of the cases, well water is used for the purpose. This causes morbidity and severe mortality very frequently. The infant mortality rate in villages is almost 50 percent higher than the urban areas.
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The other problems of the rural poverty are, youth employment, brain drain, social tensions and implementation of development planning etc. It is clear that solution will come up from higher rate of economic growth. They are likely to involve conscious interventions aimed at reconciling the growth with distribution. There is certainly a need to transform the village social structures as a part of rural development. Land reforms and social revolutions have to be more effective and brisk. There is complete confidence that we will do it and we will win the success.